The wisdom of Herbstreit

Readers of this blog know that I've been posting a series called "Kirk Herbstreit's Dumbass Quote of the Day." What you might not know is that all of those quotes (with one exception) came from one radio interview. You can listen to that interview here. I wanted to wrap the series up now by putting all those quotes up in one post for all to see exactly how much of an idiot this "expert" is.

When I saw watching that game that they put that graphic up, the only thing I could think of was that the coordinating producer would force them to do something like that to kind of destroy any credibility they'd all built over the years, just obviously by standing up and talking about an SEC school.

Attacking Gary Danielson accusing him of having been "put up" to shilling for Florida, completely dismissing not only Danielson's arguments but the idea that he might actually believe what he was saying.

It had nothing to do with ESPN, ABC, Kirk Herbstreit, Gary Danielson, any idiots on the outside. It had everything to do with the matchup they wanted. They did not want to see Round 2, plain and simple.

"If USC beat UCLA by 30 points, which they should have done ... where would Michigan have been ranked in the BCS standings? Third. That tells you that if it was just based on the teams, Michigan is clearly the team that is the better team. The masses understand that. But once SC was knocked out, it gave the voters a chance to say we've already seen Michigan, we don't want to see it again. By golly, look at Florida, they went through the toughest conference, they're 12-1, they deserve it. That's what it was. It wasn't based on doing the right thing. It was based on Michigan had their chance – we don't want to see a rematch, so they're going to put Florida in there."

Accusing the voters of trying to arrange a match-up that would deny Michigan a rematch. He completely ignores the fact that the AP which isn't part of the BCS had Florida at number 2 as well as 3 of the 6 computer polls. Computers don't have a vested interest in who plays in the BCS championship. Again he's ignoring Florida's resume, refusing to admit that they had a legitimate reason to be in Glendale playing for the title.

"Here's the problem I had; I get paid to actually watch college football, from noon to 2 a.m. I watch every game there is, and I do that for 15 straight weeks. I'm in a position where I can make an opinion on more than, well right here on paper, it says Florida beat six top 25 teams ... I don't care. I don't care. I've watched Florida every week. Congratulations, 12-1 ... that's amazing. But am I going to penalize Michigan because the Big Ten is awful this year? Absolutely not. I don't care that they beat ND and ND is terrible. I don't care that they beat Wisconsin and we don't know how good Wisconsin is. I saw them play against every team this year.

"People can say look how they played against Ball State and look how they played against Northwestern. They were bored. The difference between that and Florida ... Florida was actually trying when they played and didn't execute against Georgia and Vanderbilt, and didn't execute against Kentucky and other teams they played.

Kirk makes excuses for Michigan, you see it doesn't matter to him that a team hasn't been tested because he watches a lot of football. Herbie doesn't need statistics or strength of schedule measures because he can see things with his naked eyes that we mere mortals can't. He even knows what goes on in the minds of Michigan players who were bored by the weak opponents they struggled against and the Florida players who definitely didn't suffer from the same boredom.

I went into that game thinking I don't want to see a rematch. Whoever wins the game, done. But when I watched that game, I wanted to see another quarter, another four quarters. That was the only way in my mind, no matter who won that game.

Admitting that he was closed minded. No rational argument was going to sway him because he wanted to see a rematch at all costs.

"Guys, I'm allowed to change my opinion, reevaluate based on things I see. I thought West Virginia before they lost to South Florida, they deserved serious consideration.

Of course, the benefit of going with your heart rather than your head is that you reserve the right to change your mind because you aren't bound by logic. Of course Herbie came out tonight after the good old-fashioned woodshed beating of his beloved Buckeyes and said Florida is the best team in the land. Duh.

And for the record I think Boise State got screwed. Let's have a playoff and end this masquerade once and for all. Florida belonged in this game tonight, OSU clearly didn't. I've got to believe that BSU would have given the Gators a better game. Consider that OSU with their Heisman trophy winning QB and their "deep" receiving corps that was supposed to test the Gator secondary managed to put all of 7 points on the board. The Buckeyes dominated the first 16 seconds of the game. The Gators dominated the remaining 59:44.